Calls to ban Botox for under-18s in Scotland and Wales

Botox-style procedures should be banned for under-18s in Scotland and Wales, campaigners have said today.

A new law will come into force in England today that will stop under-18s receiving botulinum toxin injections—known as Botox—and dermal fillers with no age checks.

“The Welsh government must act fast in implementing this rule because it is a huge problem,” Ashton Collins, the director of ‘Save Face’, a Cardiff-based register of accredited practitioners across the UK who provide non-surgical cosmetic treatments, told the BBC.

She said there was “no reason for anybody under the age of 18 to be getting them for cosmetic reasons,” and that Wales and Scotland must act
due to “the risk that people could travel across the border to access this treatment.”

31-year-old Iwan Steffan from Bangor told the BBC that he began undergoing cosmetic treatments aged 18 but said he would support raising the age further.

“Every single clinic I have been to had a strict 18-plus policy yet I still think this is a very young age to start unnecessary treatments,” said Mr Steffan, who managed a salon in Liverpool before the coronavirus pandemic.

“The good thing is, Botox and fillers are not permanent. If you start getting Botox and fillers when you’re 18 it’s not going to change your life dramatically, unless you want it to.

“I would support the law if in the future they changed the legal age to 21 because you’re still not fully mature or fully developed at 18.”